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THE 


Youth Movement 
in America 

By R> M; WHITNEY 


“The new struggle of the working class 
in Germany can assume such proportions 
that they will be in a position to bring 
about for us the beginning of the Socialist 
era in one of the most important parts 
of the world. The young generation of 
proletarian youth which has grown up 
since the great victorious Russian revolu¬ 
tion of 1917 and the unsuccessful German 
Revolution of 1918, is the one to decide 
in a great measure the fate of the ap¬ 
proaching crisis. The German League 
of Youth must be the light cavalry of the 
proletarian army which is entering into 
difficult struggles against capitalism. The 
Communist Youth of Russia, and with 
it the other sections of the Young Com¬ 
munist International, must consider it the 
greatest honor to help its brother army, 
the Youth of Germany, and through it 
the German Revolution.” 

From letter of Zinovieff, President of 
the Communist International, of Mos¬ 
cow, printed in The Worker, Communist 
Weekly published in America, October 
13, 1923. 


Price Five Cents. 


Published by 

The American Defense Society, Inc. 

154 Nassau Street, New Yo-ik City. 

^ 2 - 3 ^ 











gift 

AUTHOR 

FEB £0 *24 




V 







.Vi 5 


THE YOUTH MOVEMENT IN AMERICA. 

By R. M. WHITNEY, 

Director, Washington Bureau, American Defense 
Society, Incorporated. 

THE NATIONAL STUDENT FORUM would 
like to be recognized as the intelligence back of the 
Youth Movement in America. Purporting to be an 
open forum, it is working double tides for Socialism, 
and the sort of Socialism which is only another name 
for Communium. It works in cooperation with 
such organizations as the American Civil Liberties 
Union. 

It is the purpose of the National Student Forum, 
and the other organizations which it supports by its 
sympathy, to undermine and sink, or overthrow, the 
Government of the United States, ar\d to set up in 
this country a soviet form of government, such as 
Russia now boasts. 

This ultimate goal toward which Liberalists, So¬ 
cialists, Pacifists, Internationalists, Intelligentzia and 
Communists alike are striving is always referred to 
as “the new social -order.” 

Modeled on Intercollegiate Socialist Society. 

The National Student Forum is not a pioneer in 
its field. The Intercollegiate Socialist Society, to 
quote its founder, Upton Sinclair, was the first or¬ 
ganized efforts of college students to educate them¬ 
selves, and, incidentally, to educate their educators.” 
Mr. Sinclair goes on to explain: / 

“We were careful to specify our purposfe: ‘To 
promote an intelligent interest in the study of 
Socialism; but even with that moderate state¬ 
ment, only a few institutions would let us in 
under our own evil name, AND WE HAD. TO 
DISGUISE OURSELVES AS LIBERAL 
SOCIETIES AND OPEN FORUMS AND 
SOCIAL SCIENCE CLUBS.’” 

Later, as Mr. Sinclair himself says, “the name, 
‘Socialism’ became so unpopular . . . that the or¬ 
ganization now calls itself the League for Industrial 
Democracy.” But it is a change in name only. The 
League for Industrial Democracy is working as har<J 
for Socialism and “the new social order” as ever the 
Intercollegiate Socialist League could have worked. 
Harry W. Laidler is still its secretary, and one of the 
board of directors. Alexander Trachtenberg, ad¬ 
vocate of direct action, contributor to the LIBERA¬ 
TOR, Communist Monthly, is still the executive 
head. Trachtenberg “represented America” at the 


3 


meeting of the “Enlarged Executive” in Moscow last 
June (1923). 

Norman Thomas, then one of its directors, 
summed up the preceding year’s work of the League 
for Industrial Democracy in an article in the New 
York Call of June 21, 1923, in which he said that: 

“Its representatives have spoken in more than 
50 colleges and universities before college 
classes, forums, assemblies, chapel audiences and 
faculty groups, ESTABLISHING IN THE 
GREAT MAJORITY OF THESE INSTITU¬ 
TIONS SOME MORE OR LESS ENDUR¬ 
ING CONNECTION THROUGH STUDENT 
ORGANIZATIONS.” 

The CALL, while ostensibly fighting the Com¬ 
munists, carried in its upper left-hand corner the 
Communist slogan, “Workers of the World, unite! 
You have nothing to lose but your chains.” 

The Worker, which fights the right wing Socia¬ 
lists, and makes no pretense of loyalty toward any¬ 
thing but the. Communist International at Moscow, 
carries in its upper left-hand corner of its first page 
the slogan: 

“Workers of the World, unite! You have nothing 
to lose but your chains.” 

Norman Thomas, in 1923, took over the editing of 
the New York Call. Soon afterward the Communist 
slogan in the upper left-hand corner disappeared. Still 
later, even the name of the paper was changed—to 
the New York Leader—but its policy was not * 
changed up to the time it suspended publication. It \ 
remained the organ for the Socialist Party, and Nor- ; 
man Thomas, its editor, is still a member of the 
American Civil Liberties Union, and a leader in the 
Fellowship of Reconciliation, and a writer of Social- 
istic pamphlets and articles. He is also a lecturer on ■ 
pacifism, at $100 the lecture. 

Norman Thomas is one of the Literary Advisers to 
The New Student. 

Upton Sinclair, contributing editor of the Liberator, 
Communist monthly, founder of the I. W. W. and 
the American Civil Liberties Union, follows his 
dissertation on the League for Industrial Democracy 
with this: 

“Recently another student organization has 
entered the field, the. National Student' Forum, 
product of the labors of a group of young Har¬ 
vard Liberals, with John Rothschild as secre¬ 
tary.” 

John Rothschild is a Socialist. He admits that he 
is a Socialist, but he said, when a protest was made to 
him against tunning the student bodies socialistic 
through his National Student Forum, that he did 
not intend to make the organization a Socialist body. 
Mr. Rothschild, if he was speaking the truth, must 
have let the organization get away from- him. 

4 


Constituent Organizations. 

The National Student Forum is to the Socialists 
and Communists in colleges and universities what the 
National Council for Prevention of War is to the 
Pacifists and Internationalists—a clearing house for 
their organizations. It now lists as its constituent 
organizations: 

Barnard Social Science Club. 

Bryn Mawr Liberal Club. 

Dartmouth Round Table. 

George Washington University Free Lance Club. 
Harvard Student Liberal Club. 

Hood College Contemporary Club. 

Hollins (Virginia) Student Forum. 

Howard (colored) Student Progressive Club. 
Mt. Holyoke Forum. 

Miami University Round Table. 

New York University Law School Liberal Club. 
Northwestern University Liberal League. 
Oberlin College Liberal Club. 

Park College Social Science Club. 

Rockford College International Relations Club. 
Radcliffe Liberal Club. 

Stanford University Forum. 

Swarthmore Polity Club. 

University of Chicago Liberal Club. 

University of Colorado Forum. 

Union Theological Seminary Contemporary 
Club. 

Vassar College Political Association. 

Wellesley College Forum. 

Western College Forum 
Yale Liberal Club. 

THE NEW STUDENT, “an intercollegiate fort¬ 
nightly published by the National Student Forum,” 
in the preamble to the constitution of the National 
Student Forum, says that the students: 

“dedicate this organization to the scientifically 
enquiring mind; they declare it unbiased in any 
controversy, yet permitting within itself the ex¬ 
pression of every bias; they declare its one 
principle to be freedom of expression.” 

Radical In Aims. 

This “freedom of expression” about which they 
make such ado seems to apply only to revolutionary 
deas. If a student, an outside speaker, or a profes¬ 
sor in one of the colleges has anything to say along 
>ane, conservative lines, the National Student 
Forum is not interested, or expresses itself as em¬ 
phatically antagonistic. Upton Sinclair, in his praise 
pf the National Student Forum, and with particular 
■eference to the preamble, says: 

“As an illustration of the activities of this 
group I mention that the Harvard Liberal Club, 


5 


during the year 1922, had sixty luncheon speak¬ 
ers in five months, including such radicals as 
Clark Getts, Lincoln Steffens, Florence Kelly, 
(Wischnewetsky), Raymond Robbins, Frank 
Tannenbaum, Roger Baldwin, Percy MacKaye, 
Clare Sheridan, Norman Angel and W. E. B. 
Du Bois.” | 

To say that anyone that Upton Sinclair acknowl¬ 
edges as radical is radical is like saying that saffron 
is yellow. Sinclair, Scott Nearing and H. W. L. 
Dana are of those who do not recognize lukewarm 
Socialists. Therefore, it is hardly necessary to dwell 
on the radicals who spoke before the Harvard 
Liberal Club, the parent organization from which 
the National Student Forum sprung. Mr. Sinclair 
says the radicals were “properly balanced by a 
group of respectable people including Admiral Sims, 
Hamilton Holt, President Eliot and a nephew of| 
Lord Brice.” 

Let’s take a look at the “respectable” people who 
balanced the radicals. 

“Respectable” Speakers Pink. 

Admiral Sims, the first “respectable” mentioned by 
Upton Sinclair, stated September loth that he had 
never spoken for the National Student Forum. If 
he spoke at all at Harvard during 1922 his having 
done so should not have been used “as an illustra-j 
tion of the activities of this group”—the National 
Student Forum. 

Hamilton Holt, the second “respectable” on thq 
list, is an Internationalist and a Pacifist, as his own 
activities show. He is director of the Church Peace 
Union and the League to Enforce Peace. He is a 
member of the Friends of Russian Freedom; of the 
International Conciliation Society; of the Italy- 
America Society, the Netherlands-America Founda¬ 
tion, and the Poland-America Society. He is presi¬ 
dent of the American-Scandinavian Foundation, and 
his name as chairman, headed the list of officers of 
the American Neutral Conference Committee, which 
was organized under the direction of Rebecca Shelley, 
who got her ideas direct from Carl Lindhagen, the 
Socialist mayor of Stockholm. As a member of 
various committees working against preparedness, 
the name of Hamilton Holt is bracketed with that 
of such well known enemies of our present govern¬ 
ment as Oswald Garrison Villard, the millionaire 
Socialist Morris Hillquit, born in Russia, and Lillian 
D. Wald. Considering his affiliations, one would 
hardly think of Dr. Holt as doing anything to coun¬ 
teract radicalism. 

President (Emeritus) Eliot of Harvard was born 
in 1834. Age has privileges no one can question. 


6 


From this it is easy to see that no great weight 
was thrown into the other side of the scales to 
“balance” the arguments of the radicals. On the 
other hand, it looks as if those who are out to upset 
the belief of young Americans in their Government 
and its institutions had things pretty much their own 
way in their talks before the Harvard Liberal Club, 
which is a constituent and very active part of the 
National Student Forum. 

Radical From Its Inception. 

In the June 2, 1923, issue of The New Student, 
John Rothschild, first executive secretary of the Na¬ 
tional Student Forum, tells of the organization of 
the Intercollegiate Liberal League, in 1921. Mr. 
Rothschild is a Harvard graduate. Reading between 
the lines, one could easily discern that the Harvard 
Students Liberal Club was back of the Intercol¬ 
legiate Liberal League, which, merging with the 
National Student Committee for Limitation of 
Armaments last Spring, formed the National Student 
Forum. Mr. Rothschild does not call the club by it 
name. He says: 

“Some of us—then students in a great Eastern 
University—had a feeling of the new era back in 
1919. There were those among us who felt 
themselves filled with the truth—who thought 
they understood what was happening in the 
world, and how events would shape themselves. 

. . . Others knew their own confusion, but were 
eager to find an orientation to what they felt, that 
eventually they might know what parts to play 
in the new world. Those who knew burned for 
action, and those who were less sure, wanted 
enlightment. So the group had two functions: 
discussion and study, PRIMARILY FOR 
THOSE WHO DID NOT UNDERSTAND 
THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION, INDUS¬ 
TRIAL DEMOCRACY, and in general, what 
were thought to be important phenomena of the 
new age; and for those who sought action—* 
missionary work in the student body at large. 

After paying a tribute to the “honest of the group,” 
Mr. Rothschild admits that “anxious as some of us 
were to rouse the social sympathies of our fellow 
students, we saw that the way to establishing intelli¬ 
gent belief lay in a fair presentation of fact.” Then 
he goes on: 

“In private discussions and in open meetings 
we welcomed the testimony of radicals who 
gave satisfaction to one element among us, and 
conservatives who reassured the others. Facts 
strengthened the social idealism of the unsure, 
and in some cases focussed it; facts modified 
and matured the convictions of the possessed.” 


7 


Knowing the patter of all Intellectuals, Liberalists, 
Socialists and Communists, it is not hard to reckon 
what Mr. Rothschild would consider “facts.” To 
Mr. Rothschild and his followers, a statement is a 
fact only when it bears out one of their contentions. 
Of Mr. Rothschild’s brand of “facts” here are some 
illustrations: 

“The Russians won their point through 
economic justice at home, propaganda and open 
diplomacy. . . . The cause for which the workers 
are contending in Russia will triumph. . . . be¬ 
cause they have built a higher form of civiliza¬ 
tion than that which exists anywhere else in 
the world.”—SCOTT NEARING. 

“A great many of these people (Americans) 
are incurably conservative and by the passion 
of their biased convictions dominate the masses 
they lead. Their notions about 100 per cent 
Americanism, about Christianity, about educa¬ 
tion and about international affairs are as nar¬ 
row and as dangerous as the Prussianism they 
pretend to have destroyed.”—PIET ROEST. 

“Storm and Stress. What is born in the 
depths of your adoring, loving soul, which you 
make so humble, so trembling with thanks, can 
never be unclean, can never be ignoble.” 

—JOACHIM FRIEDRICH. 

“Capitalism can no longer make a tolerable 
world, or preserve for us the heritage of civiliza¬ 
tion. International Socialism can do these 
things. . . . Those who oppose the advent of 
Socialism take upon themselves a very grave 
responsibility.”—BERTRAND RUSSELL. 

Piet Roest of Holland and Joachim Friedrich of 
Germany are two of the six foreign students brought 
to America by Messrs. Rothschild and Pratt. Scott 
Nearing and Bertrand Russell are Socialist writers 
and lecturers in high favor with all the Intellectuals. 

In his article in the New Student, which he called 
“Retrospect, Forecast and a Personal Confession,” 
Mr. Rothschild says that in the Spring of 1921: 

“We called the Intercollegiate conference of 
students who, like ourselves, were puzzling 
about the world, and the result was an articula¬ 
tion of the movement in an organization. We 
called ourselves the Intercollegiate Liberal 
League.” 

And in the spring of 1922 the Intercollegiate 
Liberal League lost its identity by merging with the 
National Student Committee for the Limitation of 
Armaments to form the National Student Forum. 
The policy of the new organization is the combined 
policy of the two older organizations, to which has 
been added support of the German Youth Movement. 


8 


Noted Radicals Speak at Organization. 

The first issue of the New Student, the official 
organ of the National Student Forum, carries on its 
first page three titles only. The Intercollegiate 
Liberal League; Academic Freedom, by Professor 
Edwin R. Seligman; Report of the National Student 
Committee for the Limitation of Armaments. In the 
first artcile, which is an account of the organization 
of the Intercollegiate Liberal League, mention is 
made of “persons of eminence” who “lent them¬ 
selves to the occasion.” The speakers mentioned 
are: Charles W. Eliot, Dean L. B. R. Briggs, Walter 
Lippman, U. S. Senator Ladd, Andrew Furuseth, 
Henry B. Mussey, Francis Neilson, Charlotte Per¬ 
kins Gilman, Mrs. Arthur G. Rotch, John Haynes 
Holmes, H. N. McCracken. 

Let’s take a look at some of these “persons of 
eminence.” Respect for the aged lays the finger of 
silence on our lips. We pass over the first speaker 
mentioned. 

The second, Le Baron Russell Briggs, A. B., LL. 
D., etc., was president of Radcliffe College, which has 
its Student International Assembly and its RadclifTe 
Liberal Club. 

Walter Lippman, formerly an editor, now a con¬ 
tributor to The New Republic, is the author of 
numerous radical and Socialistic articles. 

U. S. Senator Edwin F. Ladd, Russian sympathiser, 
upholder of Soviet Russia; visitor to Russia in 1923. 
He is a Harvard graduate. 

Andrew Furuseth is a Socialist from Norway. He 
is now a resident of San Francisco; official secretary 
of the Sailors’ Union of the Pacific and president of 
the International Seamen’s Union of America. His 
education was had in the common schools. 

Henry Mussey is an acknowledged Socialist; left 
Columbia University because of his radicalism; now 
connected with the New School for Social Research 
in New York. In Washington he was correspondent 
for the American Civil Libterties Union. 

Francis Nielson is an Englishman by birth, mem¬ 
ber of British Parliament in 1910-15. He is a founder 
of the Brotherhood Movement in England. With 
John Haynes Holmes he is editor of Unity, “a 
journal of the religion of democracy,” and with 
Albert Jay Nock, Suzanne La Follette, and others, 
he is editor of The Freeman. 

Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a Socialist and the 
author of several Communistic songs as well as a 
lot of Socialistic articles and books. 

Rev. John Haynes Holmes in “The Revolt of 
Youth,” a pamphlet, Series 1923-24, says: 

“We old folks have long expected and exacted 
obedience from our children. Nothing could be 


9 


more intolerable or unlovely. In no relationship 
between human beings has obedience any proper 
place. To the person who gives, it is a humilia¬ 
tion; to the person who receives, it is an injury. 
Obedience means subjection—the subjection of 
the weaker to the stronger; and this is as 
abominable an attitude in the home as in the 
state. Hence democracy, which ends sovereignty 
of every kind!” 

“What stands out transcendent, it seems to me, 
is the fact that we have here a new Declaration 
of Independence—a declaration of independence 
for the young. W^e have freed the slaves; we 
freed, or are freeing, women; now youth arises 
and asks its turn—nay, asserts and takes its 
turn! Our young people have come to the time 
when they propose to be free of the domination 
of their elders—free to follow their own courses 
and seek their own goals. . . . To my way of 
thinking this Declaration of Independence is as 
glorious as all previous declarations of the same 
kind; and the Youth Movement, which embodies 
it, not a peril but a great hope to humanity.” 

“From the very beginning of life, the child 
must be protected from intrusion, interference, 
warping and moulding influences of every de¬ 
scription. He must be left to be himself, trained 
and educated to be himself. Not obedience and 
reverence, but courage, self-reliance, experiment, 
adventure, rebellion, must be the spirit of his 
life.” 

Commending, in highest terms of praise, the Youth 
Movement of Germany, Dr. Holmes says, on page 16, 
of the pamphlet, “Revolt of Youth”: 

“Our purpose, say the Wandervoegel, is ‘to 
form our own life in sincerity and upon our own 
responsibility.’ With this idea in mind, they re¬ 
fuse to recognize adult leadership or counsel. 
They will not have older people among them. 
In the beginning, when they went off on their 
hikes, they took chaperones along. Later they 
refused to accept supervision of this kind. Now 
they organize always in pairs, a boy to every 
girl, a girl to every boy, tramp off to their 
Herberger, or rest huts, hold their festive cere¬ 
monies and dances, spend often the night, sleep¬ 
ing in the hut or under the trees, and always 
without adult control . . .” 

Served Prison Term. 

Of the speakers who have appeared before the 
National Student Forum, or some one of its con- 
stitutent organizations, within the past year, men¬ 
tion might be made of a few of them, with a glance 
at their records. 


10 


which amounts to conclusive proof, is found in a 
telegram dated March 4, 1918, and signed by him 
and Louise Bryant. The telegram was addressed 
to Lenin and Trotsky, Smolny Institute, Petrograd, 
and read: 

“Important you designate unofficial represen¬ 
tative here who can survey situation, weigh 
facts and cable conclusions you might accept 
and act upon. Will undertake secure means of 
communication between such man and yourself.” 

Hammers United States Supreme Court. 

Florence Kelley (Wischnewetzky), like Steffens 
and Getts, a speaker for the Harvard Liberal Club, 
has been a radical all the sixty-four years of her life, 
it seems. She has small use for any of the depart¬ 
ments of the United States Government, but particu¬ 
larly she hammers the Supreme Court. She hammers 
it in season and out of season. Wherever two or 
three are gathered together in the name of “Liber¬ 
alism,” there may be found Florence Kelley (Wisch¬ 
newetzky), abusing the United States Supreme 
Court. 

Clark Getts, luncheon speaker for the Harvard 
Liberal Club, served a term in Leavenworth prison 
because of his war activities. After his release he 
was associated with the Federated Press, which sup¬ 
plies news for all Communist publications. 

Lincoln Steffens, member of the Amnesty League, 
picked up Socialistic ideas when he was a student in 
Germany (1889-92). He was a member of the Bul¬ 
litt mission to Russia, and, while his own country 
was at war, and needed the help of every man, 
woman and child under the protection of the Govern¬ 
ment of the United States, Lincoln Steffens was 
working with Lenin and Trotsky. Evidence of this, 

Mrs. Kelley was born “Kelley.” She got her right 
to be called Mrs. when she married one Wischnew¬ 
etzky. She is an ardent advocate of socialised gov¬ 
ernment. As long ago as 1897 she was the editor 
of ARCHIV FUR SOCIALEGESTZEBUNG. She 
was one of the much applauded speakers at the meet¬ 
ing of the Trade Union Educational League in Wash¬ 
ington in May, 1923, and at the June conference of 
the League for Industrial Democracy at Camp 
Tamiment, where she declared that the Judges of 
the United States Supreme Court worked overtime 
to upset all legislation that was for the benefit of 
the children, the women and the general workers of 
the country. She had a good word for Judge Bran¬ 
ded, but said that he, working alone, could do 
nothing to stop the evil acts of the capitalists as¬ 
sociated with him on the supreme bench. 

Mrs. Kelley (Wischnewetzky) was the first presi¬ 
dent of the Intercollegiate Socialist Society. She is 


11 


now one of the vice-presidents of the organization 
under its new name—League for Industrial Democ- 
racy _the other three vice-presidents being the late 
Charles P. Steinmetz, Evans Clark and Arthur 
Gleason. 

Florence Kelley (Wischnewetzky) was part of the 
Conference for Democracy which held forth during 
the war, and advocated: 

“The American people, joining hands with the 
new democracy of Russia, must lay the basis for 
permanent world peace by establishing indus¬ 
trial democracy.” 

All the speeches at this conference, where Mrs. 
Kelley (Wischnewetzky) was chairman, were in op¬ 
position to the policy of the United States. 

Prominent as Anti-American and Pro-Russian. 

Raymond Robins, another much lauded speaker of 
the most active constituent member of the National 
Student Forum, is believed to have used his post as 
commander of the American Red Cross in Russia 
(1917-18) to arouse sympathy for Soviet Russia. 
Colonel Robins has spoken many times in this coun¬ 
try of Russia and Russian affairs, and always with a 
favorable slant toward Soviet Russia. He calls him¬ 
self a Social Economist. He has done a lot of social 
settlement work, which, according to Amy Woods, 
secretary of the United States Section of the 
Women’s International League for Peace and Free¬ 
dom, is calculated to make internationalists of nation¬ 
alists. He is an advocate of organized labor and of 
land value taxation, and is a “progressive” Republican 
in politics. His speeches have a decidedly socialistic 
trend. His book, “Raymond Robins’ Own Story,” 
having to do with what he would have the public 
believe were his experiences and impressions while 
he was in Russia with the American Red Cross, is 
heartily recommended by the Communist press. 

Raymond Robins first came into prominence as 
the husband of Mrs. Raymond Robins (Margaret 
Drier) who, May 20, 1907, “led thirty-seven hundred 
cheering, boisterous, Socialist, anarchist, trade- 
unionist members of liberal societies and sympathi¬ 
sers through down town and west side streets in a 
demonstration” in Chicago. 

Frank Tannenbaum is one of the accepted “mouth¬ 
pieces” for amnesty and pacifism. His well camou¬ 
flaged Communistic articles appear intermittently in 
Century, which Pacifists and Liberalists now claim 
as being “with them.” He is one of the speakers 
mentioned by Upton Sinclair in connection with the 
National Student Forum. 

Director of American Civil Liberties Union. 

Roger Baldwin, director of the American Civil 
Liberties Union, which organization is dubbed by 

12 


government officials as subversive to the best inter¬ 
ests of the Government, has not only spoken for 
organizations that are members of the National Stu¬ 
dent Forum, but is a man very much praised by Mr. 
George D. Pratt, Jr., now active secretary of the 
National Student Forum. Mr. Pratt says, in a letter 
to me, copies of which he liberally distributed: 

“Mr. Rothschild did indeed declare himself a 
friend of Roger Baldwin when you tauntingly 
spoke of the latter as a draft-dodger. He (Bald¬ 
win) was a conscientious objector in the most 
noble and best recognized meaning of that term, 
and served his sentence in prison bravely.” 

Mr. Baldwin was an officer of the American Union 
against Militarism during the war. He was also an 
organizer of the People’s Council, in which capacity 
he wrote to the Communist, Louis P. Lochner: “We 
want also to look like patriots in everything we do.” 
This is the man Mr. Pratt calls a “conscientious ob¬ 
jector in the most noble and best recognized mean¬ 
ing of that term.” 

W. E. B. Du Bois is a mulatto member of the In¬ 
telligentzia who stands for complete social equality 
of white and black. He is clever, and has made more 
than a local name for himself by his writing, much 
of which appears in the LIBERATOR (a Communist 
monthly). The policies he advocates are directly in 
line with the American Civil Liberties Union, the 
League for Industrial Democracy, the Women’s In¬ 
ternational League for Peace and Freedom and the 
Communists of Moscow. Du Bois has spoken for 
units of the National Student Forum. 

Clare Sheridan^ another speaker for the Harvard 
Liberal Club, a unit of the National Student Forum, 
is British, a sculptor and writer. Norman Angell is 
also British, with an American wife. He is a Pacifist. 
Percy MacKaye, the poet, comes from good old New 
England stock, but has become a Socialist mal¬ 
content. 

Paul Jones, at one time Episcopal Bishop of Utah, 
is the active head of the Fellowship of Reconcilia¬ 
tion, and a contributor to the American Civil Liber¬ 
ties Union. Mr. Jones was one of the speakers at 
the Camp Tamiment Conference of the League for 
Industrial Democracy last June, when he said: 

“Clear thinking on the subject of war is needed 
before ‘next steps’ can be considered. The first 
thing is to dismiss all ideas of glory, nobility, 
heroism or patriotism in regard to war.” 

Frederick J. Libby, Pacifist, and head of the Na¬ 
tional Council for Prevention of War, and Rabbi 
Stephen S. Wise, well known for his pacifism, are 
both advisers to the National Student Forum. Rabbi 
Wise was born in Budapest. He came to New York 
when he was a boy, and studied at the College of the 


13 


City of New York. He is founder and director of 
the Eastern Council of Liberal Rabbis, and founder 
of the Zionist organization in America. His daughter, 
Justine Wise, is on the executive committee of the 
National Student Forum. 

Mary Church Terrell, of Washington, D. C., is 
the colored member of the executive committee of 
the Women’s International League for Peace and 
Freedom. Like DuBois, she is advocate of complete 
social as well as political equality for the negroes. 
She is a contributor to the New Student. 

Harry F. Ward, of the American Civil Liberties 
Union and the Federal Council of Churches, is one 
of the literary advisers to the National Student 
Forum through the New Student. In the last issue 
of the second volume, June 2, 1923, Dr. Ward most 
urgently advises all students to read “The Decay of 
Capitalist Civilization,” by Sidney and Beatrice 
Webb. In praise of the authors, he says that the 
Webbs are the “original labor-researchers of Eng¬ 
land . . . mainly responsible for the educational policy 
and propaganda of the Fabian Society.” He recom¬ 
mends all the many books of the Webbs, mention¬ 
ing particularly “The Decay of Capitalist Civiliza¬ 
tion,” which he outlines, and “A Constitution for the 
Socialist Commonwealth of Great Britain.” 

Other books recommended by Harry F. Ward for 
the students of the National Student Forum are 
“Labor and the New Social Order;” “Incentives in 
the New Industrial Order;” “Liberalism and Indus¬ 
try;” “Organizing for Work;” Towney’s “Acquisi¬ 
tive Society,” and Veblen’s “Theory of Modern Busi¬ 
ness Enterprise.” 

Dr. Ward is a member of the executive board of 
the National Student Forum, and is himself the 
author of several books and pamphlets. It is signifi¬ 
cant that The New Student, in announcing his mem¬ 
bership on the board, thought it worth while men¬ 
tioning that he was the author of “The New Social 
Order.” 

Another member of the executive board is Dr. 
Joseph Jv. Hart of the University of Chicago, as¬ 
sociate editor of SURVEY and directors of the Phila¬ 
delphia School of Social Science. He is a lecturer 
also for the New School for Social Science in New 
York, boosted by Upton Sinclair. 

William Palmer Ladd, an Episcopal clergyman 
and chairman of the Social service Commission for 
the Federation of Churches; Dr. William F. Ogburn, 
sociologist, author of “Social Change;” Beatrice 
Lowndes Earle, “who served as secretary of the New 
School for Social Research,” (New Student); Sylvia 
Kopald, who is “lecturing on labor problems in a 
sociology seminary,” (New Student), and Harold 
Evans, “a Philadelphia Quaker lawyer, member of 


National Young Democracy Committee and for some 
time in the Friends’ child-feeding work in Germany” 
(New Student) are more of the graduate members 
of the executive board of the National Student 
Forum. All of them are Socialists or socialistic. 

Eleanor M. Phelps, as associate secretary of the 
National Student Forum in 1922, gave, in the Octo¬ 
ber 7 number, a list of “some of those who have ex¬ 
pressed their willingness to assist the students.” This 
is the list given by Miss Phelps: 

“In the Dicussion of American Foreign Rela¬ 
tions, European Rehabilitation, etc.: 

“Dr. B. M. Anderson, of the Chase National 
Bank and the Institute of Politics; Dr. James G. 
McDonald, of the Foreign Policy Association; 
Dr. Scott Nearing, Mr. Oswald G. Villard, of 
The Nation.” (One conservative; three radicals.) 

“In the discussion of the coal situation: 

“From the viewpoint of the operators—J. D. A. 
Morrow, of the National Coal Association; 

“From the viewpoint of labor—Mr. Robert 
Bruere, of the Bureau of Industrial Research; 
Mr. Christ J. Golden, member of the Nationali¬ 
zation Committee of the United Mine Workers 
of America.” (2 Rad. No Conservative). 

“From the viewpoint of the technician—Mr. 
Hugh Archibald, author of ‘The Four Hour Day 
In Coal,’ and Mr. H. Foster Bain, director of 
the U. S. Bureau of Mines; 

“From the viewpoint of the journalist—C. H. 
Lesher, Editor Coal Age.” 

Search the New Student issue by issue and you 
will not find one advocate for patriotism, for our 
government and institutions as they now stand, who 
is upheld by the National Student Forum. 

“Class Struggle” and “I. W. W.” 

What you will find upheld is the Youth Movement, 
which started in Germany; industrial democracy; 
amnesty for “political” prisoners, and such arguments 
as these: 

“Maybe the I. W. W.’s have a real cause.” 

“Maybe it could be demonstrated that the Ger¬ 
mans are not a cowardly race.” 

“Maybe our professor fails to see the class strug¬ 
gle because he is temperamentally incapable of un¬ 
derstanding any struggle.” 

Nothing criminal in any of these “maybe’s” if they 
were offset by arguments showing the other side of 
the question—but they’re not. Instead, you will find 
such statements as this: 

“WE WOULD RATHER SCRAP THE 
CONSTITUTION AND ITS BILL OF 
RIGHTS THAN DISTORT OUR MIND 
WITH POPULAR ECONOMIC AND SO¬ 
CIOLOGIC SUPERSTITIONS.” 

15 


The “superstitions” so much feared are belief in 
the Government, the Bible and its teachings, and the 
support of recognized moral and social standards for 
right living and right doing. 

The issue of March 3, 1923, was a fat “Special Sup¬ 
plement Published in Germany,” with only a leaflet 
for the American edition. John Rothschild had the 
lead story, “Why Young america Looks to Young 
europe.” “The Sense of Community in the German 
Youth Movement” is an expurgated account of the 
Weltjugeldliga, the World League of Youth. Much 
stress is laid upon the community life of the young 
wanderers. Says the writer of this article, Adolph 
Reichwein: 

“Whether they sang, played, danced, did gym¬ 
nastics or wandered, they did everything in com¬ 
mon. . . . They became reunited with nature and 
experienced a new feeling toward the body . . .” 

. . . “The movement in its first instinctive revolt 
was of a purely romantic character. All that 
was artificial, conventional and complicated, they 
opposed with the freshness and natural bloom 
of youth and good fellowship. . . . Then they 
began the struggle with the capitalistic order 
of things.” 

After the War the Youth Movement split into two 
wings, says Reichwein: 

“The left Radicals, the Communists, and the 
right Radicals, the Voelkische (People’s Party), 
who, in the ensuing fights, often opposed one 
another weapon in hand, although they were 
united in their resolution to sever all ties with 
the past.” 

Whole Movement Socialist. 

Reichwein, in his New Student article, explains 
that the whole movement is Socialist. The political 
grouping was, he says, according to the tempera¬ 
ment of the individual: 

“Those acting on instinctive feeling joined the 
ranks of the People’s Party, while the more logi¬ 
cally inclined went over to the international- 
socialistic party.” (Literally, the Communist 
Party.) 

However much others may seek to obscure the 
aims of the Youth Movement, the German writers 
in the German Supplement of the New Student make 
its purpose clear enough. 

“Youth has, as a movement, one thing above all 
others to do now,” says Hans Albert Forster of 
Leipzig,— “to turn their knowledge into action, that all 
work in the service of the small .and smallest things 
may merge and become with the great onward route 
of the organic world revolution” 


16 


Hans Schlichting of Hamburg asks: “What does 
the Youth Movement mean to us young Proletar¬ 
ians?” and answers himself by saying that it means: 

“Our support of the class combats of the 
Labor Party, our faith in the higher develop¬ 
ment of man, and our refusal to accept the in¬ 
tellectual conception of history of the bour¬ 
geoisie. . . . Our mental attitude toward our time 
leaves us no alternative. . . . than to assist in the 
destruction of the capitalistic spirit as hostile 
to the personal and economic world.” 

Erna Behne of Hamburg told “Why We Wander.” 
She puts it delicately: 

“Something came over us that was stronger 
than every-day custom—we could not breathe 
within the high walls—some unknown force im¬ 
pelled us to seek for real living life in nature. 

. . . We went in sandals, bareheaded, and in loose 
clothes that gave us a triumphant bodily feeling 
of being one with the air and sun, and that 
strengthened and tanned our bodies.” 

Christians No Longer. 

Walter Pahl of Leipzig, in his article entitled: “The 
Religious Movement in the German Youth Move¬ 
ment,” says: 

“We must regain the body if we serve God 
without the severe beauty of our blood. We 
must regain the body through our yearning, we 
must reconstruct matter if we wish to find God. 
. . . We are Christians no longer! We wish for 
man the entirely—and not a part of him. And 
so we released the body, and danced the dance 
of the earth and the stars within us. The struggle 
towards this release marks the stage in which 
the German Youth is at present. But we know 
we are on the right road—and we see the torch 
is burning to light us beyond the path of priests 
and churches!” 

Siegfried Kawerau of Charlottenburg, in his New 
Student article called “Youth and Eros,” exclaims 
that: 

“Youth and Eros are two different things! 
Eros is much vaster. Eros is the god of the 
unity of body and soul, the god of overwelling 
joy. . . . Eros is the ever-streaming, flowing, 
trickling force which moves and inspires our 
whole soul and body. . . . sexuality is restrained 
need of the body, concentrated and tormenting.” 

Paul Lambrecht sums up the Youth Movement in 
his article under the head: “The Common Front of 
Youth,” in which he appeals to the “young people of 
the earth” after this fashion: 

“Comrades! Do you not feel the pain and 
profanity of life everywhere? Do your eyes not 


17 


fill with tears, your hearts with wrath, and youi 
souls overflow with desire for other things? Dc 
you feel all this when you listen to the call o: 
your young blood? . . . Then you will know, too 
that help only comes through those who dare 
all to be what they really feel—to those who at¬ 
tempt no compromise, but tear the miserable 
balance sheet of their elders in pieces, and ven¬ 
ture to live, live, LIVE!” 

Trickery Has to Be Used. 

Sponsors for the German Youth Movement ir 
America have to be more restrained. Mrs. Rache 
Davis DuBois, of the Women’s International Leagu( 
for Peace and Freedom, contributor to the Americar 
Civil Liberties Union, is head of the Youth Move¬ 
ment as sponsored by the Women’s Internationa 
League for Peace and Freedom in the United States 
Mrs. DuBois attended, and was one of the speakers 
at the Camp Tamiment Conference of the League foi 
Industrial Democracy. In a talk with Harry Laidler 
she said that her work was “very radical,” but she 
had to cover it up “under the guise of education” tc 
get it into the schools and colleges. Her work ac¬ 
tually, but not nominally, is a part of the Weltjugend- 
liga. She studied the Youth Movement in Germany 
and made it a part of the U. S. Section of the 
Women’s International League for Peace and Free¬ 
dom. She is now organizing the young people ir 
Pennsylvania. 

Just What It Means. 

In an article in the New Student, translated frorr 
the German of Werner Jantschge by Mildred Wert¬ 
heimer, the aims of the Weltjugendliga are stated 
broadly and vaguely, as a “wish to aid in permeating 
the aroused consciousness of the time with a spiri' 
strong enough and ideal enough to overcome the cus¬ 
tomary reliance on force and self-interest in man’s 
dealings with his fellows.” 

The principles for which the Weltjugendliga stanc 
ready to fight, according to Herr Jantschge, in th< 
New Student, are: 

“Against race hatred, profit of men in men 
the slaughter of human beings and the destruc 
tion of valuable goods; 

“Against the glorification of war, educatioi 
for the use of force and the creation of a thirs 
for blood; 

“Against the falsification of religion, philoso 
phy, love of home and country, in order to un 
chain and carry out mass slaughter; 

“Against the control and hiring of convictions 
above all in the press, and the use of lies an< 
conspiracy in creating opinion; 


18 


“For the friendly intercourse of peoples and 
a new ordering of society through cooperative 
industry, peaceful work, and realization of the 
sacredness of human life; 

“For the honoring of peace, justice and human 
excellence. 

“For freedom of opinion and belief, and the 
subordination of selfish aims in comradeship; 
for independence of public opinion, for truth and 
candor between peoples, societies and in¬ 
dividuals. 

“For a native culture springing from the peo¬ 
ple themselves.” 

All these “againsts” ;and “fors” are very fine and 
good, if they meant what they say—and no more. 
Unfortunately, these principles put into practice 
mean: 

Against patriotism, national defense and pre¬ 
paredness; against all military training; against his¬ 
torical facts concerning military heroes, great bat¬ 
tles; against all teaching that would breed love of 
country, reverence for church and religion; against 
any attempt to curb anti-American propaganda. FOR 
internationalism, pacifism, socialism, liberalism, “free¬ 
dom of opinion and belief” only so long as it is radi¬ 
cal and revolutionary. 

“Expression of Spirit.” 

In the New Student of May 5, 1923, an editorial 
“explains” the Youth Movement in this country and 
disclaims any connection with the German Youth 
Movement. I quote: 

“The Youth MoVement is spontaneous—a 
growth out of the youth of this or that country. 
It has no creed, no organization. It is a demon- 
x stration of a large number of young people 
spontaneously in motion. The living, force of 
the Youth Movement is an attitude, a spirit. . . . 
Therefore the German edition of the New Stu¬ 
dent (March 3, 1923) can be of no use to the 
young people of America except as a national 
expression of a spirit which is in all of us.” 

However “spontaneous” the Youth Movement may 
be, this “explanation” was anything else. It was 
brought out by a pamphlet by Mr. Ralph M. Easley, 
foreword by Mr. Conde B. Pallen, showing up the 
Youth Movement as it is. Read the apology of the 
New Student for the “explanation” of the Youth 
Movement: 

“It would harclly be necessary to explain a 
thing of this sort were it not for the fact that a 
couple of old gentlemen in the National Civic 
Federation went to the trouble of publishing a 
frenzied, extremely inaccurate pamphlet on the 
Youth Movement. . . . How suspicious and self- 


19 


satisfied these old fellows are! They have no 
faith in their young people, and they spend the 
last years of their lives screaming heresy at a 
world in which spiritually or mentally they have 
long since ceased to exist.” 

A preacher from the Middle West, who is less than 
a year younger than either of the “couple of old gen¬ 
tlemen in the National Civic Federation,” grew witty' 
and sarcastic over the Easley pamphlet, and unbur¬ 
dened himself of his wit in the August 22 issue of 
The Nation, to this effect: 

“The Stars and Stripes still fly over the Uni¬ 
versity. Thanks to Mr. Easley and his Civic 
Federation. The National Student Forum, in its 
effort to promote friendship and understanding 
between European and American students, ar¬ 
ranged a tour of the colleges by a select group 
of students. They came to the University. A 
brilliant young Englishman. A Czech filled with 
enthusiasm. . . . And—tread gently!—one of our 
late enemy, a brilliant lad of 21 years from the 
University of Heidelberg. They came to tell of 
the spiritual ideals of the youth of Europe. 

“Thanks to Mr. Easley, their (the foreign stu¬ 
dents’) heresies did not foul the pure air of the 
University. The redoubtable Easley issued an 
encyclical. It told the dreadful truth. He waxed 
eloquent over the Youth Movement in Europe. 
He saw them leading in a concerted protest 
against war. They were red . . . pacifists . . . 
socialists. . . . anarchists.” 

Europe “Scoured” to Find Right Men. 

Messrs. Pratt and Rothschild visited twelve coun¬ 
tries and made an intensive study of the youth of 
six countries to find the men they wanted to appear 
before the college students of this country. They 
were looking for men who could put across the 
“ideals of the Youth Movement” without giving the 
general public too much knowledge of what this 
movement really means. If the men were too openly 
Communistic, it would not be wise for them to come 
over. Hear the sad story of Broch. 

Theodore Broch, a Communist of Norway, was 
one of the students they engaged. Broch’s activities 
for the Communist party of Moscow happened to be 
so well known in this country that the authorities, 
hearing that he was coming, announced that he would 
not be allowed to land. Finding it impossible to get 
this revolutionist into the United States, Messrs. 
Pratt and Rothschild issued a statement to the effect 
that: 

“Theodore Broch of Norway, with whom we 
had arranged for a lecture tour in this country, 
has decided not to come, in view of the fact that 


20 


it is quite evident the authorities would object to 
his landing.” 

But before it was known to these young men that 
Broch could not land in this country, Mr. Roths¬ 
child had written a letter saying that the Norwegian 
was a member of the Nascent Anti-Militarist Move¬ 
ment and the Student Christian Movement and of the 
Nationalistic Cultural Movement of Young Peasants 
and the Movement of the Communists. In the same 
letter Mr. Rothschild declares that he and Mr. Pratt 
have “no prejudice against Communists.” 

In his letter of introduction to Broch, Mr. Roths¬ 
child, laying down the common law of the wool- 
pullers in the United States, wrote: 

“We are concentrating ourselves entirely on 
the problem of arousing students wherever we 
may go, and our method may often undergo 
change.” 

In other words, some loyal students are mentally 
more alert than others, not so easily taken in by 
sentimental twaddle. The same program won’t fit 
everywhere. 

More Camouflage. 

“We plan three or four days’ stay at each 
place,” Mr. Rothschild continues his instruc¬ 
tions. “One day for the speeches, the rest of 
the time for social opportunities. We shall travel 
as modestly as possible—because we believe that 
the greater our simplicity, the more convincing 
will be the mission.” 

Mr. Rothschild warns Broch against letting the 
public know that he is a Communist, but makes this 
concession: 

“If at any time you wish openly to tell people 
in private conversation what you are politically, 
and why you are what you are, you are free to 
do so. This may involve some risks, but there 
are risks we can not ask you to avoid.” 

Quite clearly, the “risks” to which Mr. Rothschild 
so delicately refers are risks to the reputation of the 
National Student Forum. It is not at all Mr. Roths¬ 
child’s intention, and it is very far from Mr. Pratt’s 
present wish, to have the National Student Forum 
looked upon by the general public, or even by the 
colleges in general, as a Communistic organization, 
or a disloyal institution. Whether they would admit 
it or not, “We want also to look like patriots in 
everything we do,” is their slogan now, just as it 
was the slogan of the People’s Council in Septem¬ 
ber, 1917. 

Roger N. Baldwin, the admired and honored friend 
of both John Rothschild and George D. Pratt, Jr., 
Roger N. Baldwin, the draft dodger, whom Mr. Pratt 
calls “a conscientious objector in the most noble and 


21 


best recognized sense of that term,” would most 
heartily approve of Mr. Rothschild’s letter of instruc¬ 
tions to the Communist Broch. It is possible that 
he would say to Messrs. Rothschild and Pratt, as 
he said to Louis P. Lochner: 

“We want also to look like patriots in every¬ 
thing we do. We want to get a lot of good 
flags, talk a good deal about the Constitution 
and what our forefathers wanted to make of this 
country, and to show that we are the folks that 
really stand for the spirit of our institutions." 

That is what the leaders of the Youth Movement 
in this country are trying to do with the Socialistic 
Student Forum. 

Continental Students All Socialists. 

The information about the six students brought 
over is all taken from the New Student. 

ANTONIN PALECEK, Prague University, active 
in “Student Rannaissance Movement,” chosen to 
represent Cze.cho-Slovakia; “well acquainted with 
the youth movements of his own country.” 
JORGEN HOLCht, Copenhagen, Denmark, “liberal” 
from the age of twelve; active in the University 
Settlement of Copenhagen; took part in workers’ 
education; mixed up with Quakers in England; ad¬ 
vocate of “cooperation” on the Socialist plan; mem¬ 
ber of the Student Christian Movement; “spoke 
for the Youth Movement in all Scandinavian 
' countries.” 

PIET ROEST, of the University of Leyden; mem¬ 
ber of the Practical Idealists Association, which is 
a “fellowship of young people loosely banded to¬ 
gether to live their individual ideals.” 

HANS TEISLER, representative of the German 
. Youth Movement. 

W. A. ROBSON, London School of Economics. 
JOACHIM FRIEDRICH, University of Heidelberg, 
another representative of the German Youth 
Movement. 

Wanted Only Representatives of Youth 
Movement. 

In selecting these foreign students, Messrs. Pratt; 
and Rothschild wanted only representatives of the 
German Youth Movement, no matter from what 
country the student came. The Youth Movement 
was born in Germany. Mr. Pratt, in writing of it as; 
he found it, says: 

“It shapes itself very much according to en¬ 
vironment and national situation, but owing to’ 
its intense idealistic base, it tends to unite in¬ 
ternationally. Although it has affected prac¬ 
tically every young person in Europe, it is made, 
up essentially of strong minorities, and it is with 


22 




these minorities that we must deal, for in them 
lies the true life of the movement.” 

He admits in the next sentence that most of the 
y.ouths in Europe are apathetic toward the movement, 
“or definitely reactionary,” except in Germany. 

Mixed Up With the “MOT DAG” Group. 

While they were abroad Messrs. Pratt and Roths¬ 
child became favorably impressed with a “group” of 
Communists in Norway referred to as the “Mot Dag 
Group.” To Zinoviev of Moscow, who believes in 
“direct action,” the brand of Communism dispensed 
by the “Mot Dag Group,” while calculated to at¬ 
tract just such sentimentalists as Mr. Pratt, is not 
quite all it should be. At the meeting of the “En¬ 
larged Executive” last June both Zinoviev and Buch- 
arin said unkind things about the “Mot Dag Group,” 
to which Messrs. Pratt and Rothschild had, after 
their return to the United States, sent affectionate 
greetings. Nasty words were spoken by Bucharin. 
Hoeglund, Communist delegate from Norway, pro¬ 
tested, whereupon Zinoviev, answering Hoeglund, 
said: 

“Hoeglund defended the periodical, Mot Dag. 

' Hoeglund demands that we should be loyal to 
the Norwegian comrades. Of course we must be 
loyal to comrades, but what must we do to peo¬ 
ple who use such shady weapons against us as 
the ‘Mot Dag Group?’ ... All honor to the Nor¬ 
wegian proletariat! But how can we tolerate 
it when certain individuals write thus in its 
name?” 

Clearly, this Mot Dag Group, of which Messrs. 
Pratt and Rothschild approve, is a child of Moscow 
to be disciplined by Moscow, which shows how close 
to the Third International the National Student 
Forum stands. 

Disciplined By Communist International. 

In the same speech Zinoviev made it clear that the 
“Mot Dag” represented the Young Communist 
League, and that the Young Communist League was 
a part of the International at Moscow. 

“It is the duty of the Young Communist 
League,” asserted Zinoviev, “to submit to the 
discipline of the International.” (Let the “foam¬ 
ing youths” who have discarded all laws keep 
this in mind; they must “submit to the discipline 
of the International.”) “We must object to 
contemptuous manner in which the Youth Move¬ 
ment was referred to. The Youth Movement is 
the best section of the Communist International 
and that is as it should be, because they are the 
heralds of the future.” 


23 


“Give- our regards to the ‘Mot Dag Group/ ” wrote 
Messrs. Pratt and Rothschild in their letters to 
Broch, the Norway Communist who was not given 
permission to land in the United States. However, 
it is but just to these young Americans to say that 
their admiration for the “Mot Dag Group” was not 
allowed by them to lessen their loyalty to the Youth 
Movement as a whole. They agree with Zinoviev 
that “the Youth Movement is the best section of the 
International.” 

“That strong, pure, idealistic spirit which is 
the Youth Movement,” writes Mr. Pratt in the 
New Student for November 4, 1922, “stands far 
above and ahead of the other movements of the 
world.” 


Games In Physical Nakedness. 

A further reading of the New Student should dis¬ 
pel any doubt that the National Student stands for 
all that is embraced in the doctrines of the German 
Youth Movement. Take the issue of December 2, 
1922, for example. On page five is begun a long 
article by Lillian Frobenius Eagle on “A Confer¬ 
ence of Youth in Central Europe.” A brief quota¬ 
tion will suffice: 

“As one of the chief aims of the Young Peo¬ 
ple’s Movement is to awaken a new attitude and 
feeling towards the human body, and the nude is 
regarded in the Hellenic spirit, many of the 
participants in the game were naked.” 

The entire article is a panegyric on the Youth 
Movement, following closely along the lines fol¬ 
lowed by Mr. Pratt in his article on the same sub¬ 
ject written from Germany. The youths of the Youth 
Movement are called, in the New Student: 

“The forerunners of a new humanity, the 
prophets and seers, the torch-bearers of those 
who are to accomplish and fulfill their visions.” 

Miss Eagle visualizes these spiritual youths for 
the National Student Forum: 

“A lonely hilltop in the darkness of the sur- 
. rounding world. ... A red glow of fire shining 
on the visionary eyes of a new youth whose gaze 
is bent inwards while they stretch forth hands * 
to the youth of other lands to come and join 
their ranks.” 

And in another paragraph of the same article: 

“With eyes straining into the future, they say, 
‘We are a handful of young people, naked and 
unknowing, but striving to realize God in a 
world of gross materialism by the realization of 
ourselves in a higher life. Let him who feels 
the Call join our ranks and help us.” 


24 


Sex Studies “Ideal.” 

To the National Student Forum as a body every¬ 
thing about the Youth Movement is “ideal.” A cur¬ 
riculum proposed by the Barnard students is called 
by these students, some of whom are on the executive 
board of the National Student Forum, “ideal.” This 
curriculum includes: “SPECIFIC HUMAN DE¬ 
VELOPMENT OF SEX-REPRODUCTIVE 
CHILDBEARING FUNCTION.” 

“ a -—The facts of structure, function, develop¬ 
ment and hygiene of the sex and reproductive 
apparatus of the male and female. 

"b*—The outstanding facts of paternity and 
maternity. 

<<c -—The effects of sex on individual human 
development from fertilization to maturity. 

“d*—The nature and power of the sex impulse. 
“ e -—The gradually developed sex controls im¬ 
posed on the individual by society. 

“f-—The pathological effects of perverse and 
unsocial uses of sex in society.” 

In this fulsome praise of the “daring young ladies” 
who sponsored this “ideal” curriculum, which is 
given in full in the New Student, Upton Sinclair, in 
The Goose-Step, likens it to the work being done in 
Germany by the World League of Youth, and quotes 
from the Manifesto Weltjugendliga: 

“Comrades! We are united in the hatred of the 
institutions of our social life and of our time. 
We ask ourselves: whose fault are these institu¬ 
tions, this civilization? On whose conscience 
rest these political systems, these schools, these 
churches, these politics, these newspapers, and so 
much else? The adult people.” 

“The unifying characteristic of the Youth 
Movement,” says one of the German leaders, 
“is this: we no longer want to obey laws that 
come from without. We want to form our lives 
in accordance with the laws that are within us.” 

There you have it. The adult people being re¬ 
sponsible for the present laws and customs, the wise 
youths, boys and girls alike, will have none of them. 
They will “roll their own,” or have none. And 
Barnard, with its Social Science Club a working 
constituent part of the National Student Forum, be¬ 
gins by insisting upon an exhaustive study of sex in 
the classroom. 

“The Call of Youth.” 

Under this head, in one of the New Student articles 
written from Germany, young Mr. Pratt tells the 
world his opinion of the “old men.” You will have 
noticed that he writes the word, “civilization,” when 
he refers to the pre-war type, in quotation marks. 
This, I take it, is meant to show that there was never 
any prospect of true civilization till youths such as 

25 


he and Mr. Rothschild and the Barnard “daring 
young ladies 2 ’ took things in hand. In the 
which I shall quote Mr. Pratt is referring, of course, 
to the youth of the Youth Movement. He says: 

“This youth knows that the better, 1 
social structures must be built by it, and, not y 
the products of that ancient ‘civilization which 
crashed to ruin in the great war. We in Amer¬ 
ica must realize our position towards the youth 
of other nations, and toward the development ot 
our own country and its people as a part of the j 
world. That youth is foolish and unreliable, 3 
that youth can not be trusted with the responsi¬ 
bility of great things, is the babble of old men.| 
“It is they,” the wise and youthful Mr. Pratt^ 
continues to heap it up on the babbling old men, j 
“who have shown that they are unfit to govern, 
and decide, and it is upon them the responsibilityj 
for the future rests. 

“We students who are to be the guides for 
the future must get to know each other ... We 
must realize the essential unity of our aims. . . . 
Youth seems to be uniting, determined to bring 

about a new order.” 1 

That the Youth of America might the more clearly 
hear the Call, the New Student announced in its 
April 21st number, under the heading: “SUMMER, 
WITH THE GERMAN YOUTH MOVEMENT,” 
that the National Student Forum would send five or 
six students to Germany to study the Youth Move¬ 
ment. As an inducement, the New Student added! 

“Our German friends have submitted a plan 
whereby these students may be matriculated at 
a German University where will be gathered 
many of those most interested in the Youth 
Movement—for it is a simple matter for a Ger¬ 


man to change his University. The Americans 
will later be introduced to the new schools, the 
prison work, etc., and will finally go on a Wan- 
dervogel tramp perhaps in Thuringen.” 

And so on page six of the New Student’s issue oi 
November 3, last, Mr. Rothschild has an article tell¬ 
ing of the results of that plan. He says that or 
June 26 “seven American students waved good-by< 
from the steerage deck of the steamship Reliance t( 
us on the pier.” 

Those who went were: Arvia MacKaye, daughte: 
of Percy MacKaye and a student of Radcliffe’; Helei 
Stedman, graduate of the University of Oregon ani 
a student at Madison, Wise.; Lenore Pelham, 
graduate of Rockford College; Eugene Corbie, j 
negro student of the College of the City of Ne\ 
York; Howard Becker, of Northwestern University 
Evanston, Ill.; Earl Bellman, of Friends University 
Wichita, Kan.; and Douglas Haskell, of Oberlii 


26 


Joseph Chassell of the Union Theological Seminary, 
and Ruth Boardman, a Barnard student, joined the 
others at Hamburg, and remained, adds Mr. Roths¬ 
child, “with them through most of the trip.” 

Works In Harmony With Civil Liberties Union. 

Not only does the National Student Forum, 
through its leader, George D. Pratt, Jr., stand for 
Roger N. Baldwin, leader of the American Civil 
Liberties Union, but—again through Mr. Pratt—it 
defends the American Civil Liberties Union in so 
many words. Let me quote again from young Mr. 
Pratt’s letter to me: 

“Roger Baldwin is an upstanding American 
and his patriotism, which admittedly runs coun¬ 
ter to yours, is tha-t love of liberty and justice 
which have constituted the greatness of the great 
men of the nation, and which small men in every 
generation have mistaken for treason.” 

Evidently, Mr. Baldwin has succeeded in “looking 
like a patriot” to Mr. Pratt. He seems also to have 
succeeded, with his “talk about the Constitution and 
what our forefathers wanted to make of this coun¬ 
try,” in making the American Civil Liberties Union 
look like what Mr. Pratt says he believes it is: “A 
bona fide American defense society. It defends,” 
continues Mr. Pratt, “the basic American institutions 
of law and order.” 

Mr. Baldwin says, and Mr. Pratt knew this to be a 
fact when he wrote the letter from which I am .quot¬ 
ing, the members of the American Civil Liberties 
Union: 

“All of them believe in the right of persons 
to advocate the ‘overthrow of the government 
by force and violence.’ ” 

He knew also that the American Civil Liberties 
Union backs up these “persons” when they are mak¬ 
ing such advocacy, and try to get such “persons” 
out of prison that they may continue to “advocate 
the overthrow of the government by force and 
violence.” 

Mr. Rothschild is a member of the American Civil 
Liberties Union by his own admission to me, and 
Mr. Pratt writes: 

“Despite the fact that you see the Civil 
Liberties Union ‘red,’ it is, in our observation, a 
valuable restraining agency at a time when there, 
is a general recourse to violence in suppressing 
unpopular elements.” 

The American Civil Liberties Union is a supporter 
of, and is supported by, the National Student Forum: 
And the American Civil Liberties Union, as the Na¬ 
tional Student Forum knows, has been officially; 
listed, after a thorough investigation, as “a supporter 
of all subversive movements.” 


27 


The 

American Defense 
Society, Inc. 

National Headquarters, 

Suits 1133, 154 Nassau Street, 

New York, N. Y. 


Washington Bureau, 

Suite 709, Aebee Building, 
Washington, D. C. 

The Society is a voluntary membership organ* 
ization deriving its financial support from the yearly 
dues of its subscribers. Join the Society and help 
in the fight for American Defense. Membership 
schedule per year, Regular, $1.00 ; Subscribing, 
$5.00 ; Contributing, $10.00 ; Sustaining, $50.00; 
National Committeemen, $100.00; Donor, $250.00. 
Write for report of 1922, list of publications, etc. 


“KEEP up the EIGHT FOR AMERICANISM.” — T. R. 

To Benj. L. Allen, Treasurer 

The American Defense Society, Inc., 

154 Nassau St., New York, N. Y. 


__192 

Dear Sir: 

Enclosed is check for $- 

to help carry on the work of THE AMERICAN 
DEFENSE SOCIETY. 


Name 


(Please Print) 


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